THE WAR IN REVIEW
THE WAR IN REVIEW THIS WEEK World War II passed its fourth and one-third year. In that span of time in World War I the Allies had smashed the German Second Reich and sent its ruler, Wilhelm...
...On the Russian front, the Red Army continued its attacks on the northern and southern flanks of the Dnieper line and successfully withstood strong German counterattacks in the central sector west of Kiev...
...Amery had apparently forgotten that soon after the signing of the Atlantic Charter Prime Minister Churchill emphatically disclaimed that the Charter applied to any countries except those washed by the Atlantic Ocean...
...The two journalists, one of them a member of Parliament, predicted that war against Japan would be "very tough and a very long affair" even after Germany has been knocked out the war...
...Allied leaders concluded a series of history-making conferences in the Near East at which plans for the all-out smash against the continent were agreed upon...
...Whatever was to be Turkey's role in the future military developments, it was noted at mid-week that Inonu's government had ordered the calling up of another million men into the armed forces and that German troops were massing on the Turkish border in Europe...
...Germany's military deaths in this war are estimated at 2,500,000 compared with 1,773,700 in the last...
...There was every prospect this week that Adolf Hitler, the leader of the Third Reich, would far outlast his war-making predecessor...
...He promised that "no matter how fierce the counter-attacks" the Allies would be wiped out...
...Many people, particularly in the United States, have little understanding of the tremendous difficulties our fighters must overcome in the South Pacific," they asserted, pointing out that the "vast distances alone" are a major handicap to decisive military action...
...Tojo Talks Tough From the Pacific battle zone, the Allies heard this week the answer of Japan to the Cairo Declaration of Roosevelt, Churchill, and Chiang Kai-shek...
...Allies Favor Tito This week Secretary Hull voiced the policy of the State Department concerning another area of turbulent unrest in the Balkans...
...Reports persisted of internal crisis in Bulgaria and growing unrest in Hungary...
...U. S. Liberators smashed at Sofia, the capital city, and dropped pamphlets warning the Bulgarians to get out of the war...
...Declaring that he could not understand "why that legend was propagated that we were not interested 'to apply' the Atlantic Charter" to India, he declared that India would gain freedom under the terms of the Charter...
...American Fifth Army forces were reported to have crossed the worst part of the mountainous area on the march to the valley plains leading to Rome...
...He made this statement in an answer to a specific question concerning the application of the Charter to India...
...Tito's Partisans, Hull said, would continue to receive more Allied aid than Mikhailovitch's Chetniks just as long as they continued to show greater resistance to the Germans than Mikhailovitch is showing...
...Bulgaria, one of the two Balkan countries bordering Turkey, was the principal target of a combined military and political offensive...
...While American forces pushed ahead in Bougainville and New Guinea and continued air raids to soften up the Marshall Islands for anticipated invasion, America heard sobering words concerning the length of the Pacific war from two prominent English journalists recently returned from that battle area, Sir Neville Pearson and Samuel Story...
...Understanding With Turkey The "Big Three" conference at Teheran was followed in a few days by a conference between President Roosevelt, Prime Minister Churchill, and President Ismet Inonu of Turkey...
...War Henry L. Stimson pointed out this week...
...Meanwhile, the European military picture remained about the same as last week, with the Italian front showing the most promise...
...Allies Aim At The Balkans The "decisive test" was still ahead for the Allies, as Secretary of...
...But despite this view, there was no denying that the growing pressure of Allied might had opened large cracks in the ramparts of the European fortress...
...From Washington Secretary of State Hull called on Bulgaria, Rumania, and Hungary to get out of the war or share the responsibility of Nazi Germany...
...It is believed that 10,000,000 civilians have perished in this war...
...Looking at the military situation on-the major fronts of the global struggle this week, sober-minded observers could see little hope that peace would come in any period of time comparable to the last war...
...Anglo-American forces had yet to face the full strength of the German Army and that Army was demonstrating, on the Russian and Italian fronts this week, it still retained a good deal of the deadly striking power that had brought it some of the most sensational victories in the history of warfare...
...In both great battle zones they were still nibbling at the outer fringes-of the enemies' inner fortresses...
...Meeting at Cairo, the three conferees were said to have decided upon policies that would guarantee neutral Turkey's cooperation ("steps short of war") in the campaign in that area...
...Indeed we anticipated" it...
...Sidelight On Indian Famine Meanwhile, there was little to show that any headway was being made in checking the ravages of the famine and epidemic sweeping the Indian province of Bengal, although the tight-lidded censorship at New Delhi was allowing some stories to come through claiming that Viceroy Sir Archibald Wavell had brought the situation under control...
...We are definitely carrying out the principles of the Atlantic Charter," he pontificated...
...Stone further revealed that the Indian food situation and its connection with shipping had been taken up with the American and British authorities more" than a year ago by the CIO and been ignored...
...At mid-week the Partisans were reported in a decisive struggle with several German divisions bent on wiping them out...
...With Nazi Germany still far from beaten, the cost of the war to the Allies had already far outstripped the last great slaughter...
...The Cairo agreement," he said, "is merely a revelation of the ambitions of the Anglo-Americans and a declaration to the world what their ultimate aims are...
...Hull declared that the United States would follow the policy of Great Britain in continuing to send supplies to the Yugoslav group led by Marshall Josip (Tito) Broz...
...Other political and military blows designed to cut the Balkans away from Germany came this week...
...Although the military decisions must of necessity be kept secret and it was still too" early to judge the real significance of the political effect of the conferences, it was evident that the Allies had intentions of capitalizing in both respects on the seething unrest in the Balkans...
...Allied military deaths alone totaled an estimated 7,500,000, compared with the 5,152,115 of the last war...
...In that span of time in World War I the Allies had smashed the German Second Reich and sent its ruler, Wilhelm Hohenzollern, fleeing into exile...
...Amery's excuse, Stone said, was that there was no shipping to spare, although shipping authorities in Washington told Stone that it could be easily arranged to transport the food...
...Stone charged that most Washington officials whom he interviewed about the problem were convinced that the real obstacles were political issues that must be settled in London...
...The Allies were engaged in two major wars in different parts of the world...
...In western Europe, the RAF and American bombers kept up a steady round of air attacks on Germany's principal industrial areas...
...In an interview with the United Press this week, Amery promised that India would have its independence after the war, but he imposed the usual condition that the various factions must agree on a constitution that would guarantee that the nation would not be plunged into civil war...
...Speaking on the second anniversary of Pearl Harbor, Premier Hideki Tojo declared that Japan's answer to the declarations avowing dismemberment of his country's empire was "annihilation" for the Allies...
...An interesting sidelight on the Indian crisis broke into the news this week when I. F. Stone, Washington correspondent for the New York tabloid PM, charged in a copyrighted story that a Canadian and Australian offer to give thousands of tons of wheat to relieve the famine was rejected by the British Secretary of State for India, Leopold Amery...
Vol. 7 • December 1943 • No. 51
